Jon Stewart: America’s toughest media critic

Commentary: The rally in Washington confirms his elevated status

JonFriedman

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Last week, I posed the question of what Jon Stewart wants to be when he grows up. I wondered if he might someday be a TV anchor or — heaven help him — a politician.

Nah. Those jobs are too small-time for America’s most clever pundit. I have it figured out now. Stewart would be perfect as a network news president. What would be more fitting for America’s toughest media critic?

That’s right. Stewart puts my brethren pretty much to shame — it is unfortunate, but true. He is wittier, more tenacious, more forceful and more passionate than most so-called media critics who can be bought off with a martini, courtesy of a solicitous flack.

Although he’s not a journalist in the traditional sense, he is also no longer (merely) a comedian who tells pungent jokes about celebrities, pulls funny faces to lampoon politicians’ gaffes and generally comes across as the nation’s leading smarty pants.

He is clearly out for bigger game. Stewart has taken to task CNN
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for its now defunct “Crossfire,” CNBC
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for serving as a stock-market cheerleader in the buildup to the 2008 economic meltdown and the Fox News Channel for the way it covers national politics. (Fox and MarketWatch are both units of News Corp.
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)

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Stewart is an equal-opportunity critic. Regardless of his own political leanings, he harasses CNN and Fox with the same sort of vigor — in fact, Stewart might have even been tougher on CNN than he was on Fox.

Still, I’d suggest that the likes of CNN, CNBC and Fox represent low-hanging fruit for him. A solid constituency is in place that already loathes each of these news institutions — and it doesn’t require any prodding or encouragement from Stewart.

Citizen Stewart

Stewart professed a deep love for America when he concluded his rally Saturday with an impassioned plea for Americans to remember the ideals that made the country great in the first place. It was an admirable speech. As I watched it, I started thinking in historical, big-picture terms about how Citizen Stewart can best serve America.

I’d like to see Stewart try his hand at running a TV news operation — not as a gimmick or a put-up-or-shut-up dare. I’d really like to see what Stewart could do if he had free rein. After all, magazines often enlist the services of guest editors, usually in feeble attempts to prop up publicity and newsstand sales.

Why, then, shouldn’t ratings-challenged CNN or MSNBC shake things up in the cable-news universe and bring Stewart in to run the show(s) for a while? I wouldn’t mind if Stewart got a permanent gig — but that is asking for too much.

Stewart would likely enforce some much-needed standards to the oft-amateurish reporting, mindless banter between on-air journalists and clumsy pacing of the segments.

Here is just one example of how the news networks are falling down on the job. NBC emailed me a press release on Tuesday afternoon trumpeting an “exclusive prime-time interview” with Mary Winkler.

Who?

She shot her husband and now — thanks to the wonder of television — has a forum to issue “a call to action to domestic-abuse victims to ask for help, saying, ‘I’m not leadin’ by example, but I am leading out of regret.’”

Speaking of regrets, NBC and the other networks should voice their share about how they hype the news.

True, Stewart has made his mark as an outsider and America’s court jester. But I contend that he could make a difference. The real question is whether Stewart would consider taking a step away from the fun, lucrative work he gets to do every day.

Most of all, he could bring some discipline to the kinds of stories that TV-news shows tend to cover. Invariably, TV news is late to the party and compensates by over-covering a story. In the case of the tea party, this was especially true.

The media need to simplify matters and give something a name to dumb it down. The tea party “movement” is about more than polarizing America even further — as Stewart recognizes.

It’s about time that the TV media restored some semblance of sanity to news coverage on a regular basis.

I hope we get to see it on Jon Stewart TV someday — soon.

MEDIA WEB QUESTION OF THE DAY: Can Jon Stewart go beyond TV entertainment and really make a difference?

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